Tutu speaks out against Iraq conflict
March 27, 2003
by Art Golub

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke out against the war in Iraq on Wednesday during a visit to Chicago.

"God weeps to see us raining bombs on those who are precious in the sight of God," Tutu told an audience of nearly 1,000 people attending a luncheon benefit for Lawrence Hall Youth Services at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner and Anglican Church leader said, "Those who die in war are not just casualties. On all sides they are my brothers, my sisters. This is how Jesus spoke of us, as one family."

After the speech, Tutu told reporters the United States should have given the United Nations more time to work out a peaceful solution.

"We've waited 12 years; what would be wrong with another six months? Why should it be so urgent now?" he said.

Asked if liberation of the oppressed in Iraq was different from liberation of blacks in apartheid South Africa, Tutu replied: "We didn't ask those who were helping us to bomb us into the middle of next week. It's a perverse thing to say we are seeking to liberate you, and you do it by producing corpses, and you say to those corpses, 'Now you are free.'"

Tutu also said he prayed "the hostilities will end as quickly as possible so we can have resources which we can invest in places like Lawrence Hall.'' The Chicago-based social services organization assists abandoned, abused and neglected children.

Tutu recently backed reparation payments for the black majority oppressed by South Africa's abandoned policy of apartheid and said the concept could work in America. Chicago's City Council passed a resolution in 2000 urging Congress to consider slavery reparations.

Most of Tutu's speech dealt with the theme that God needs human beings to accomplish his work on Earth. Tutu cited Moses and the prophet Jeremiah as examples of those who had to be "persuaded" by God to do his will.

"And when God asked Mary to bear his son, what if she had said, 'Sorry, I'm a decent girl, try next door?' We would have been up the creek."

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